One was with an ex-Army (if I'm remembering correctly) Iraq veteran who had been present at the Aurora, Colorado shooting. When asked why he, as a licensed carrier of a concealed weapon hadn't returned fire and killed the attacker, he replied along the lines of: "There were people screaming and running around; it was a confused mess -- I'm a combat veteran and there's no way I could have returned fire under those circumstances and been sure I'd hit the shooter and not civilians."

Similarly, a concealed-carry person at the event where Gabby Giffords was shot said much the same thing in an interview. He also pointed out that if he had opened fire -- without knowing exactly who the shooter(s) were, where they might be, or even how many there might have been -- all he would have done is make the situation worse. And, quite possibly, gotten himself shot by the police when they showed up -- because, after all, how would they have known that he was one of the "good guys with a gun"?

__________________
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”

More classic NPD. Often followed with "IF I CAN'T HAVE HER NO ONE CAN!" and related restraining orders, stalking, honour killings marital abuse.

...I'm not really sure Californians, on the whole, would take this the way Smallgloves wants it taken. I'm pretty sure most of them would say either, "Suits me fine," or, "Please don't throw me in that briar patch, Brer Fox."

I mean, the right-wingers in the rural parts of the state, sure. But they're outnumbered by everyone else.

It's important to distinguish between regular NPD and malignant narcissism, though. Trump has the latter.

__________________

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith

“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” -Mikhail Bakunin

Some 170 experts on Presidential politics were polled about how they rated the presidents, and many of them ranked him the worst. The Republicans among them ranked him fifth worst.

This is only his first year, and President Trump might improve. But he seems too narcissistic to do the self-criticism necessary for that. Or else some staff members could treat him as a figurehead leader, cutting him out of all decision-making and keeping him only for document signings and public appearances.

We have FDR at no. 3, and OK I can understand that for some obvious reasons, but otoh, shouldn’t his imprisoning of innocent Japanese-American citizens maybe, just maybe, knock him down a few pegs?

T. Roosevelt, militarist and overt racist.

Jefferson, racist, owner and impregnator of slaves.

Truman, unnecessarily dropped two atom bombs, killing untold numbers of innocent civilians, and locked us into the national security state under which we still labor. Also a racist.

Obama, blew chance, when he had the popularity and votes in Congress, to enact a New New Deal and clean out the Wall Street gangsters who had crashed the economy. Also continued the wholly pointless war in Afghanistan and greatly expanded drone attacks that to this day kill innocent people. Eighth best? Yeah, no.

Reagan … Reagan? At No. 9? Holy fuck.

Johnson … the tenth best president ever? You mean Lyin’ Baines Johnson with his little escapade called the Vietnam War? Holy fuck again!

And what’s Nixon doing way down at No. 32? Sure, he’s Nixon, but still … he actually had quite a number of accomplishments. The opening to China (JFK had mused about nuking China) detente with the Soviets, major arms control agreements, the initiation of the EPA and OSHA, a huge upsurge in desegregation despite his racially coded rhetoric, the Clean Air Act, expanded enforcement of affirmative action, Title IX, and on and on. How in the world does he, with this record, even in spite of Vietnam and Watergate, deserve to be at No. 32, while Jackson … Andrew fucking Jackson … is our 15th best president ever? You mean the guy who committed genocide against Native Americans? Yeah, I guess that must be who you mean.

G.H.W. Bush clearly deserves to be in the top ten (though this is a low-bar list). And how did his idiot son who did so much damage to this country go up to No. 30? Why are Garfield and Harrison even ranked? The first was killed in his first year in office and the second died 32 days after being inaugurated! If I were to rank either of them, I would be tempted to put them in the top ten on the theory that they did not have enough time to do the damage they no doubt would have done had they lived longer.

McKinley and Polk, warmongers and racists, in the top 20 … Do these “experts” remember McKinley’s vile escapade in the Philippines or Polk’s war of aggression against Mexico?

Wilson at No. 11 — vile racist, set back civil rights for decades, got us into World War I … Nah.

One could go on. What’s really depressing is to realize how many utterly shitty presidents we have had. Herr Drumph has good company.

Here's my top ten list:

1. Lincoln
2. Washington
3. FDR (OK, a pass on the internment thing because you can’t deny his accomplishments.)
4. Harrison (!)
Gosh, who next? What a bunch of shitty presidents!
5 G.H.W. Bush
6. J.Q. Adams
Man, this is hard!
7. Eisenhower (though another racist, at least he ended the Korean War, presided over general prosperity, did not try to kill the New Deal as many in his party wanted him to and mostly avoided entanglement in Vietnam)
8. Carter
9. Clinton
10. Nixon (It’s that bad.)

Harrison... racist, owner and probable impregnator of slaves, attempted multiple times to expand slavery to Indiana, as well as fucking over Native Americans. But he died and left Tyler in charge, so he's great, I guess.

Interesting that Obama is blamed more for managing pre-existing wars more competently (but with DROOONES, which are of course far worse than spraying Agent Orange like Nixon) but not ending them, than Nixon for sabotaging Vietnam peace talks during the 1968 election and then bombing Cambodia (that also ought to affect his rating vs. Johnson, of course).

He also gets credit for not impotently vetoing bills passed by a Democratic Congressional majority that passed with a veto-proof majority, while Obama gets blame for being unable to pass whatever he wanted through GOP filibusters and later a GOP House. My radical theory is that Congress actually has power and the president shouldn't be assigned credit for everything they do or don't do. And to the extent that Nixon tried to affect those environmental laws, he tried to water them down (he did bother with impotently vetoing the Clean Water Act). Then he appointed conservative shitheads like William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court, who later decided to appoint George Bush president.

Nixon also gets credit for a decrease in segregation which is presumably due to laws passed under Johnson, such as the Fair Housing Act. Despite setting the GOP down the Southern strategy which has helped bring us to where we are now, Nixon's racism and anti-Semitism don't count for much, I guess. He even gets credit for improvements set in motion by Johnson's civil rights achievements.

LBJ did escalate in Vietnam, which was horrible, but at least his legislative achievements weren't the doing of the opposition party and there's plenty of evidence that he worked hard and effectively to get them to pass over filibusters/opposition from Southern Democrats/conservative Republicans. Under LBJ, we had the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Immigration & Nationality Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, the permanent establishment of food stamps, the creation of the National Endowments for the Arts and for Humanities and the CPB (from whence PBS and NPR), the Bilingual Education Act, Higher Education Act, among a number of other domestic policy accomplishments. He also appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. Johnson could not implausibly be argued to have an even greater record of domestic achievement than FDR, and certainly in regards to civil rights, and certainly a far greater record of progressive domestic achievement than anyone else in your top ten aside from FDR and Lincoln.

Eisenhower gets credit for not trying to destroy progressive achievements to push him into the top ten, while Obama gets blame for expanding health care to cover 20 million more people, including 11 million of whom were covered by Medicaid, not private insurers, because you wish he had covered more. It was, nonetheless, one of the largest expansions of the welfare state in US history.

Anyway, "Nixon the last liberal president" takes are bad. I understand - I used to buy into it too. But it's bullshit that requires erasing the role of Congress and public opinion and ignoring that Nixon's judicial appointments reflect a very conservative, not liberal/progressive, ideology.

I'd have to think a lot more to give a comprehensive ranking, but I'd definitely have Nixon in the bottom third. And Obama > Carter, Clinton, Truman, Bush 43 (for fuck's sake), Eisenhower and Harrison. And LBJ in the top ten.

Washington was a slaveholder and a racist, true enough. After posting I had thought about giving a clarifying parenthetical to him, as I did with FDR. If we’re talking about a ranking of presidents from first to worst (a rather silly enterprise to begin with IMO), someone has to be up top and someone has to be down below. Maybe the best way to think of my own list is that Washington was the second least worst president. He seemed to have run an administration of probity, didn’t do too much damage, and thoughtfully retired after two terms. Not much, maybe, but as I said, we’re talking about a low bar. I should also mention that in addition to his mistreatment of Japanese-Americans, FDR should be indicted for his shitty record on civil rights.

As to my pick of Harrison as fourth-best president, this is entirely my mistake. It’s easy to conclude I was referring to W.H. Harrison, whom I had just discussed. Actually I was referring to BENJAMIN Harrison, who, so far as I can tell, ran an administration of probity, did a few good things and little or no damage. But I decided not to go back in and edit because it amused me to no end to think that someone who served 32 days in office could be ranked the fourth best president of all time. You may have noticed that for whatever flaws I may have, I do have a pretty good sense of humor. Note also that I had already said that it was silly to rank either W.H. Harrison or Garfield because their time in office was negligibly short.

In his first two years Obama had the votes and the popularity to push through radical change, like universal health care coverage and not his shitty Obamacare that is mainly a sop to the insurance industry. He also had the potential capacity to clean up Wall Street. He didn’t even try. At least Clinton (and Nixon and Truman) tried to push through universal health care coverage. Obama did not even try. It is, what it is, whether you like it or not.

Whatever his motives, Nixon has an impressive record of domestic and foreign policy accomplishments to go with his crimes and atrocities. People, history, and life are complicated. As far as Johnson goes, his Great Society was great. Too bad he was a lying bastard who launched a needless war that cost 50,000 American lives to say nothing of the greater number of Vietnamese killed and maimed, and in so doing paved the way for Nixon and Reagan. But I guess that’s OK because Medicare? And his civil rights legislation, actually first proposed by JFK, legislation that Johnson called “nigger bills”? Yes, Johnson had a great domestic record, but he doesn’t get to be top ten in my list because of Vietnam and because of his mendacity. And yes, maybe ranking Nixon above Johnson is a mistake, but again, this is a list, in my mind, of least-worst presidents, not best presidents. Because of Vietnam and because, like Nixon and Trump, he was a congenital liar, Johnson is not to be honored. Of course this is just my opinion, as there is no objective way to measure these things. Take it all with a ton of salt.

It’s easy to conclude I was referring to W.H. Harrison, whom I had just discussed. Actually I was referring to BENJAMIN Harrison, who, so far as I can tell, ran an administration of probity, did a few good things and little or no damage.

I don't actually know enough about him to issue much of an opinion of him.

Quote:

In his first two years Obama had the votes and the popularity to push through radical change, like universal health care coverage and not his shitty Obamacare that is mainly a sop to the insurance industry.

It expanded the Medicaid rolls by 11 million. I suspect if that had been all it did, you wouldn't complain as much about it and suggest somehow that it wasn't good (even if it was not ideal).

Getting 11 million Americans gov't funded healthcare and making it more affordable for about another 9 million (some of whom receive quite generous subsidies) is not ideal because so many others didn't get help, and the subsidies should've been more generous. But it was definitely a big improvement on the status quo. And, btw, the expansions of Medicaid and the subsidies were largely funded through taxes on the wealthy.

Just because it falls short of what you want doesn't transform it from being one of the largest expansions of the welfare state into somehow worse than nothing, something worth ranking "not trying to destroy the New Deal" as a bigger accomplishment.

Either way, the Democrats in the Senate only had 60 votes effectively for about four months. The rest of the time was either before Al Franken was seated, during the time that Ted Kennedy and/or Robert Byrd were hospitalized, or Ted Kennedy's seat was vacant, or after Scott Brown had won Kennedy's seat.

Quote:

He also had the potential capacity to clean up Wall Street. He didn’t even try.

Ignoring the question of whether Dodd-Frank and the CFPB represent a "try", that doesn't much demonstrate that another president is better. You also would probably remind us that Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall and did other things which contributed to Wall Street's misbehavior... but you rank him higher.

Quote:

At least Clinton (and Nixon and Truman) tried to push through universal health care coverage. Obama did not even try.

Yet Obama got something done, unlike them. Universal healthcare would not have passed, a public option was scuttled by Lieberman, single payer would not have done any better.

And you're again giving Nixon too much credit. (Although certainly something was possible under Nixon, Ted Kennedy wanted to hold out for more. He ended up waiting almost 40 more years for something not substantially better as a result. Which only validates the approach of shitting on healthcare bills that are big improvements but don't go far enough, I guess.)

Quote:

It is, what it is, whether you like it or not.

I agree that most presidents in US history are bad. Fact is that the vast majority of them didn't pass any significant expansions in public healthcare, and Obama did, and the one he passed was a larger expansion than, say, S-CHIP. Whether you consider it disappointing or not, it is still a more significant achievement than those of others you rank higher.

Quote:

Whatever his motives,

It's not just a matter of motives. Nixon didn't have the ability to block a number of these bills that he signed. Nixon didn't work to make them more progressive, or help shepherd them through a Congress that might have failed to pass them. Johnson may have been personally racist (but probably significantly less so than Nixon) but he was part of the force behind the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts passing.

Quote:

Nixon has an impressive record of domestic and foreign policy accomplishments to go with his crimes and atrocities. People, history, and life are complicated. As far as Johnson goes, his Great Society was great. Too bad he was a lying bastard who launched a needless war that cost 50,000 American lives to say nothing of the greater number of Vietnamese killed and maimed, and in so doing paved the way for Nixon and Reagan. But I guess that’s OK because Medicare?

I didn't say it was ok, I said it was horrible. Yet Nixon was also a lying bastard and bigot who killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese, and you're willing to put him in the top ten. And you also have to weigh things like the sanctions against Iraq, bombing in Sudan, the Contras, the CIA's overthrow of Mossadegh and Allende, laying the roots of US involvement in Vietnam, etc. against Clinton, Reagan, Nixon and Eisenhower as well. Most of them were shitty in various ways on foreign policy (this is probably the best thing you can say for Carter - that he didn't get us involved in major wars - but he had little in the way of major accomplishments in domestic policy either).

Quote:

Of course this is just my opinion, as there is no objective way to measure these things.

Of course. But I was just noting that the criteria you suggested matter seem to imply a different ranking than the one you produced.

If "not trying to destroy the New Deal" is a big plus, then surely a large expansion of the social welfare state must be an even larger one. If mendacity and escalation in Vietnam are horrible, then they are for Nixon as well as Johnson. If Nixon's domestic record (which he deserves not so much credit for) can elicit a "with a record like that", then surely Johnson's far more impressive record implies he ought to be ranked higher. You can't wave away Nixon's motives and the fact that the Congress passing many of these bills had little to do with Nixon, yet complain about Johnson's, and whine that Obama didn't make enough of his opportunities rather than simply counting the bills passed without regard for what they had to do with them and what was possible.

It certainly seems that they way you evaluate accomplishments and assign blame is much more lenient for Nixon than Obama. Maybe you are more disappointed with Obama than Nixon, since you hoped Obama would be better whereas Nixon was expected to be a shit, but that doesn't make Nixon better than Obama.

I also say that you ought to consider Supreme Court appointments (and judicial appointments in general, altho obviously you'd obviously be most familiar with the SCOTUS appointments). Obama's Sotomayor and Kagan compare very favorably to most previous presidents' appointees. LBJ's Marshall and Fortas were quite good. Nixon's were very bad. (This is also one of the brightest spots on Clinton's record, as RBG was a very good appointment.) Rehnquist was fucking shit up for progress in the US for over three decades after Nixon left office.

Quote:

What’s your top ten presidents list, Erimir?

I'm not familiar enough with some of the presidents before WW1 to produce a comprehensive list. But I do suspect that the ones who aren't notable enough for me to know much of anything they did do not rise to the level of the top ten presidents.

I don't feel like spending the time really considering how to rank all of them. I didn't rank Trump, but I will say that he is certainly working hard to earn a spot below W. There are certainly things he's talking about which could push him below (notably a "bloody nose" strike on North Korea that goes poorly).

"Probably doesn't love the children," says the man who abandoned Don, Jr., Eric, and Ivanka until they were adults (Eric's wife said, "We never saw him until the campaign."), never sees Tiffany, and would rather golf every weekend than spend time with 11 year-old son Barron. https://t.co/dVZJOCkAxI

Being accused of cowardice by Donald Trump is like being accused of sexism by Donald Trump or being accused of racism by Donald Trump or being accused of anti-semitism by Donald Trump or being accused of adultury by Donald Trump or being accused of lying by

Seems like just recently Republicans were attacking teachers for everything under the sun (greedy, lazy, liberal, poor educators, etc. ). Now GOP wants to entrust teachers to engage in armed warfare in the classroom. #gopHypocrisy

In America, the young victims of a tragedy are victimized even more just for speaking out against the gun fetish so many have. I can’t imagine the PTSD these kids are having, and how hard it must be to go back to school and their normal life.

If more guns is the answer, then why are guns banned on public tours at the White House? Why are guns banned at Republican National Conventions? NRA Conventions? In The View audience? In line with Conservative philosophy, guns should be permitted & sanctioned at these venues.

Hmmm, why would Wayne LaPierre denounce the FBI? Is the @FBI actively investigating if Kremlin operatives funneled massive amounts of money to the @NRA to influence the 2016 elections? https://t.co/TrXrY3jx9m

Oh. Huh. Wonder why they even bothered to change the date. It's not as if the original isn't still damning.

A couple more, then I think I'm off to bed:

When people die of drug overdoses in America, we don’t ask the drug dealers how to fix the problem, so when people are killed by guns in America why should we give a shit what the hell the NRA has to say?

So, after the president spent all afternoon live tweeting Fox news, he phoned in and basically babbled a stream of consciousness to his fawning audience, who, no shit, told him his approval rating is 'soaring'.

Now there's this other country that in the last couple decades elected an authoritarian populist who then went on to co-opt television stations to rant for hours on end. This was Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Trump continued with another lie: "Now you know they're not going to have their best people in the lottery, 'cause they're not going to put their best people in the lottery. They don't want to have their good people leave."